LifeMiles Is Offering A 125-135% Bonus On Purchased Miles

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However, on top of that, some accounts seem to be targeted for a 135% bonus. This seems to be for those who purchased LifeMiles recently, based on the wording of the email I received.

For example, when I go to the “buy miles” page for my account, I have the opportunity to purchase 470,000 miles for a total of $6,600, which is a cost of ~1.4 cents per acquired mile.

With “just” the 125% bonus, you’re looking at a cost of ~1.47 cents per mile.

For 2017, LifeMiles has increased the maximum number of miles you can purchase per calendar year from 150,000 to 200,000 miles. This is pre-bonus, so in practice you can acquire a lot more miles per year thanks to the big bonuses they offer.

Should you buy LifeMiles?

LifeMiles is a unique currency, and nowadays is a lot better than it used to be. You can redeem the miles for one-way awards, they don’t impose fuel surcharges on any award redemptions, they have competitive redemption rates, and as long as you have 40% of the miles needed for a redemption, you can purchase the remaining miles at the time you issue your ticket for as little as 1.5 cents per mile.

As you can see, most of the bonus offers are roughly in the same range. Often the biggest difference is the number of miles you need to buy in order to activate the highest possible bonus. So in general I recommend buying LifeMiles based on when you’re ready to redeem them, rather than based on the minimal differences in the bonuses.

Buying LifeMiles counts as an airfare purchase

LifeMiles processes mileage purchases directly, meaning that buying miles with them qualifies as airfare spend. Therefore you’ll want to consider using one of the following cards for your purchase, since they offer the following bonus miles for airfare spend:

Bottom line

Here we’re seeing LifeMiles offer a 125-135% bonus on purchased miles, which can represent a great deal. If you’re looking to book a premium cabin Star Alliance ticket, I’d seriously consider taking advantage of this offer.

As I always say, everyone has to crunch the numbers for themselves as to whether or not this makes sense. There are great values to be had, though in general I also don’t like to hoard miles.

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About luckyBen Schlappig (aka Lucky) is a travel consultant, blogger, and avid points collector. He travels about 400,000 miles a year, primarily using miles and points to fund his first class experiences. He chronicles his adventures, along with industry news, here at One Mile At A Time.

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If you travel to Latin America they can offer deals as good as BA low mile awards. I bought a one way Col-Mia for 7500 miles inDec.
The service in AV Metal is superior than any US airline. Friendly staff, professional crew, well established carrier plus newer fleet.

Seems like if you want to buy speculatively you would be best to but up to 40% of what ever award you want as a goal long term at 1.47 cents per mile if you can buy up to the award at 1.5 cents per mile at any time.

May I suggest, Lucky, that you simply name upfront the airline that the frequent flier program is part of, as part of good practice in writing your posts? Especially if they are programs that are outside of the US? (this being a US-centric blog?)

Just say Avianca LifeMiles. Pretty much no one knows (aside from a few enthusiasts) who LifeMiles is, without the airline name. I challenge you to get 1/2 of any random reader to name Avianca without you telling them that.

I have checked LH availability on CA for the next 14 days and have located several days where F, C and Y availability, but when checking same days on Lifemiles am always getting the dialog
“The flight itinerary your are searching for is not available. If you opted for a preferred carrier you can try with another one or with our Smart Search option.”
Examples being HKG to MUc and HKG to FRA on 27 Feb and 28 Feb.
Is Lifemiles genuinely a partner with LH , because it looks like buying Lifemiles is just a waste of money.

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